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Cormac McCarthy : A Legacy Revisited
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Overview
"Through this telling of McCarthy's life, Daugherty has begun the work that one hopes literary biography can do: unearth the story of how the art escaped the confines of the flawed life that yielded it." --New York Times
A biography of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Cormac McCarthy, from Tracy Daugherty, the New York Times bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist biography Larry McMurtry: A Life.
Cormac McCarthy is hailed as one of America's greatest novelists. In his body of work, the nation's story is told in incomparably vivid shades of violence, greed, and love. And yet, most of his personal story has been largely untold--until now.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781250348722
- ISBN-10: 1250348722
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press
- Publish Date: October 2026
- Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
- Page Count: 528
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Singular for his sublime prose and harrowing examinations of American violence and expansionism, Cormac McCarthy is widely considered one of the most significant writers of the 20th century. His acclaimed body of work includes The Road, Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses—just to name a few. His death in 2023 posed the difficult question of how to properly memorialize such an outsized and complicated figure. In the tremendous Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited, Tracy Daugherty delivers a grounded portrait of one of America’s most mythologized writers. Daugherty, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his Larry McMurtry biography, skillfully builds an engaging narrative out of countless fragments including letters, newspaper articles and interviews both new and old. Cormac McCarthy journeys through not only the events of McCarthy’s life, but also the “elusive realities” of the vast, ever-changing landscape in which he developed his distinctive voice. Daugherty’s lucid prose offers readers a keen sense of time and place. In particular, McCarthy’s hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, is brought memorably to life: “broken houseboats bobbing on brown river water,” “mouth-harp maestros blowing fierce slip jigs,” “the smell of coffee and freshly shelled pecans.” It was there that McCarthy, feeling stifled by his well-off upbringing (his father was a Yale-educated lawyer), first sought out the perilous world of bootleggers and gamblers that later appeared in much of his work. This biography avoids the trap of romanticizing McCarthy, a crucial aspect in the wake of 2024 statutory rape allegations concerning McCarthy’s relationship with Augusta Britt, who was only 16 when the author, then 42, first met her in 1976. Daugherty highlights but does not sensationalize the gravity of McCarthy’s actions, which involved transporting Britt across the U.S.-Mexico border while she was still a minor. Literature fans in particular will enjoy the book’s thoughtful analyses of McCarthy’s writing and its influences, though those wanting to avoid spoilers for his novels should be careful, as well his back-and-forth process with tireless editor Albert Erskine, one of the last holdovers from the era of traditional boutique publishing as it gave way to the rise of publicly traded, mass market publishers. Cormac McCarthy is a worthy, insightful read for anyone seeking to understand this influential author.
Singular for his sublime prose and harrowing examinations of American violence and expansionism, Cormac McCarthy is widely considered one of the most significant writers of the 20th century. His acclaimed body of work includes The Road, Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses—just to name a few. His death in 2023 posed the difficult question of how to properly memorialize such an outsized and complicated figure. In the tremendous Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited, Tracy Daugherty delivers a grounded portrait of one of America’s most mythologized writers. Daugherty, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his Larry McMurtry biography, skillfully builds an engaging narrative out of countless fragments including letters, newspaper articles and interviews both new and old. Cormac McCarthy journeys through not only the events of McCarthy’s life, but also the “elusive realities” of the vast, ever-changing landscape in which he developed his distinctive voice. Daugherty’s lucid prose offers readers a keen sense of time and place. In particular, McCarthy’s hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, is brought memorably to life: “broken houseboats bobbing on brown river water,” “mouth-harp maestros blowing fierce slip jigs,” “the smell of coffee and freshly shelled pecans.” It was there that McCarthy, feeling stifled by his well-off upbringing (his father was a Yale-educated lawyer), first sought out the perilous world of bootleggers and gamblers that later appeared in much of his work. This biography avoids the trap of romanticizing McCarthy, a crucial aspect in the wake of 2024 statutory rape allegations concerning McCarthy’s relationship with Augusta Britt, who was only 16 when the author, then 42, first met her in 1976. Daugherty highlights but does not sensationalize the gravity of McCarthy’s actions, which involved transporting Britt across the U.S.-Mexico border while she was still a minor. Literature fans in particular will enjoy the book’s thoughtful analyses of McCarthy’s writing and its influences, though those wanting to avoid spoilers for his novels should be careful, as well his back-and-forth process with tireless editor Albert Erskine, one of the last holdovers from the era of traditional boutique publishing as it gave way to the rise of publicly traded, mass market publishers. Cormac McCarthy is a worthy, insightful read for anyone seeking to understand this influential author.